A Full-time Life

SPRING -- IN FLORIDA and in OREGON

   

This is  a morning sky shot taken from our back porch.   It's beautiful and very quiet on the Canal now.  Most  snowbirds have left Florida for their summer homes.

 

 

We are snowbirds too, but we usually come a little later and stay a little longer than most of our friends.  In the sunshine areas that snowbirds frequent, the six-month  season is usually defined as October through April, with the busiest months being January, February and March.  We usually don't arrive until December.

So during the month of May we like to pretend we're full-time Floridians.  Just like the people who really are, we talk about how thankful we are to get around Fort Myers now that there are fewer cars and fewer people.    (And it really is wonderful.)  The weather is beautiful here now, but I do start to  miss Oregon Springtime a little bit by the end of April.  

So I was delighted when our daughter texted a bunch of photos of their yard.   All of the flowers in the mosaic below are blooming in their Oregon backyard right now: 

   

 

The up-side of staying in Florida during May is that we miss the worst month of the Oregon hay-fever season.  The down-side is that we miss  typical Spring flowers almost completely (it's too hot here for most of them).   So I loved the reminder of Oregon springs.    (I've showed the beautiful big Black Walnut Tree in the center picture often,  because we hang out under it a lot during the summer and fall.  But isn't it beautiful in the Spring?  (I had almost forgotten myself.)     

 

Now back to Florida for some Spring birds: 

 

Woodpeckers are our morning alarm clock these days.  They are fun to see and (usually) to hear.   And they are part of the reason why we know it's Spring.    The temperatures don't seem much different now, but the birds know what season it is and we start to see Spring migrants here, just the same as everywhere else in the Spring.      

 

Ospreys are everywhere ... we ate at the waterfront restaurant on the top left last week -- a farewell dinner with friends on one of their last days here.  When we came out this guy was sitting on a telephone pole directly above where our car was parked.  Every living creature has to eat!  

 

 

This is a view of Fort Myers from the dock of a different waterfront restaurant.  We've been eating out with friends quite a lot lately as people finish up their season.  Making more Florida memories to take home until next season rolls around.     

  

LINKING this week to the following sharing opportunities:   :  OUR WORLD on Tuesday; MOSAIC MONDAY; ALL SEASONS; NATURE NOTES; THROUGH MY LENS; FLORAL BLISS; WILD BIRD WEDNESDAY; Wednesday AROUND the WORLD; THANKFUL THURSDAY; SKYWATCH FRIDAY; SATURDAY CRITTERS; and RATHER B'BIRDING.

 THANK YOU to all of the wonderful hosts and to everyone who visits!  

 

 

EARTH DAY 2018 - CORKSCREW SANCTUARY

   

All  pictures in this week's post are from our visit to the Audubon Corkscrew Sanctuary earlier this month.   

 

 The dry season is just ending in Florida -- it is a good thing that there is this much water in the swamps. 

 

The words in the two mosaics below this are cropped portions of an informational sign near the start of the boardwalk trail through Corkscrew.  The panel is titled 'History of the Swamp'.     These words are always appropriate, but especially for Earth Day (which should of course be every day).  

 

 

As shown below the next mosaic, things got better after a while, but unfortunately we  have "leaders" at the national level right now that seem  determined to send our country back to somewhere between 1783 and 1953.

    

 Wild iris are one of the very few typical Spring flowers that we see here in Florida.

 

 

FINALLY CAME UNDERSTANDING

 

( I couldn't crop this picture to include the headline  for this panel, but the typed line above is what it says.)

 

We are grateful for the Audubon Society,  for Alt-National-Park,  for the Sierra Club, and for all of the other groups and individuals who are working hard for our natural world -- in the face of opposition.   And we hope these efforts can keep  our planet alive and well.  

      

        

  Immature Little Blue Heron

 

    

 

 

 “Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.”  

Theodore Roosevelt

 

 

Night Heron, Immature 

 

 

Roseate Spoonbill 

 

"In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we are taught." 

 Baba Dioum

 

 

 

Grateful we are still able to enjoy these wonders.  Grateful also for nature bloggers who are doing their part to conserve and love our world, to teach others, and to share   ....  you lift my spirits.

 

 

 

 

Linking this week to:  NATURE NOTES;  MOSAIC MONDAY; OUR WORLD on Tuesday; FLORAL BLISS; ALL SEASONS;  THROUGH MY LENS; WILD BIRD WEDNESDAY; Wednesday AROUND THE WORLD;  SIGNS SIGNS; THANKFUL THURSDAY; SKYWATCH FRIDAY; SATURDAY CRITTERS; and RATHER B' BIRDING.

 

Thank you to all of the hosts!  

 

TWEEN WATERS

 

Last week we traveled by boat to Tween Waters Marina Resort on beautiful Captiva Island.    There were four boats  and one couple who traveled by car and met us at the resort.   It was another great middle-of-the-week long weekend.

 

 

 

We arrived at the Marina on Tuesday and had a little bit of rain and wind on that day -- but the rest of the "weekend" the weather was blue sky beautiful,  although a little cooler than usual for April here.     (Our friend took this picture as we left the Marina going home on Thursday.)

Bill and I didn't mind the slightly  cooler weather at all because we don't yet have an air conditioner on our boat.  The weather was perfect for us ... we slept well with the light wave action rocking us to sleep both nights.  (Bill said he had to get up in the middle of the first night to re-tie the lines because the boat was bouncing.  I barely noticed!)

  

 

 

Tween Waters is a lovely resort -- marina, hotel, cottages, three different restaurants, a large swimming pool -- and as seen above, beautiful landscaping.   The sign is a little wobbly though -- and that's the way it looks, not the fault of the photographer.

   

 

 Great white Egret

This was not specifically a birding trip -- but we saw a lot of lovely ones anyway.   I always try to take advantage of every  accidental birding opportunity.

 

 

A couple pictures of the Marina dock and the 'crow's nest' which is a great place to sit with morning coffee or evening wine and look over the Bay.

 

 

 Great Blue Heron 

Another frequent visitor to the marina area.

 

 

The whole group at lunch at the Green Flash Restaurant.  This is not one of the restaurants at the resort, but about a mile and a half down the road.  The couple who drove ferried us to and from (a couple of trips each way) because the road between the two is narrow and busy -- definitely not walkable.    (Thanks to our waiter and our friend on whose phone he took the picture.)

 

  

 Brown Pelicans

 

 

 

The beach  at Tween Waters.

Beach-combing by day, sunset watching by evening, eating in between, and all with great company!   

 

Life is good.

   

Osprey with prey 

 

 

I think we actually saw the Green Flash -- (or at least my camera did)!!

 

 

 

Linking this week to OUR WORLD on Tuesday; ALL SEASONS; MOSAIC MONDAY; NATURE NOTES; THROUGH MY LENS; FLORAL BLISS; WILD BIRD WEDNESDAY;  WEDNESDAY AROUND THE WORLD; SIGNS SIGNS; THANKFUL THURSDAY;  SKYWATCH FRIDAY; FLORAL FRIDAY FOTOS; SATURDAY CRITTERS; and RATHER B'BIRDING.  

Thank you to all the hosts.

 

NATURAL and MAN-MADE WONDERS

 

Last week we took a picnic lunch to  Corkscrew Audubon Nature Preserve and enjoyed  a nice long (for us) nature hike around the preserve.

 

 

We used to see Roseate Spoonbills more often, but  haven't had good sightings this season until this early April walk.    Maybe we just haven't been in the right place at the right time.     On that hike we saw several.   

 
 

 

 These birds were in the garden area just outside the Audubon Visitor Center.   I know that Cardinals are frequent backyard visitors for many, but they don't live  in the Pacific Northwest and so they've never become routine birds for us.   (Actually I can't imagine ever being anything but excited to spot them.)  The two feeder birds on either side of the female Cardinal (top row) are Painted Buntings.  They are certainly the most colorful bird I've ever seen (in person) .... and they are another bird that we never saw until we traveled outside of the Pacific Northwest.

 

 The next pictures are from our March overnight trip to Redland and Homestead.

We visited Coral Castle, a feat of engineering that has been placed in the National Register of Historical Places.   The structures in the Park were built by one man, Ed Leedskalnin.   

An immigrant from Latvia, Ed was a small man, weighing only about 100 pounds at 5 feet tall.  Without any help at all and using only simple tools, many homemade, he excavated, carved, and moved tons and tons of coral rock (which weighs 120 pounds per cubic foot) to create his coral castle. 

 

 

 

To us, it seemed more like he created a kind of strange dream of a magical garden than a castle, but I guess they had to call it something.

Mr Leedskalnin was born in Latvia in 1887 and in 1913 was engaged to a woman ten years younger.  On the eve of their wedding, she told him she didn't want to marry him because he was too old. 

He soon immigrated to the United States and eventually, still broken-hearted about his lost love, began to construct the coral castle to honor her.  Maybe he hoped she would eventually join him, but nobody knows for sure.

 

 

 

He eventually opened his Castle to the public  .... (and he obviously wasn't modest about what he had done).  When asked how he was able to move all of the heavy  blocks he said it was because he understood the laws of weight and leverage.     

 

 

He built all kinds of structures:  thrones, beds, children's play structures, a bathtub, fountains, heart-shaped tables, rocking chairs that weighed 1000 pounds each but can be rocked by one person, a table in the shape of the State of Florida, a working sundial, and much more.    These are just a very few of them.   The picture on the right is me moving the  6,000 pound gate into the grounds.  There aren't any gears or bearings -- it is  perfectly balanced so that it can be turned by one person.

 

 

 This sign was in the small upstairs apartment where Ed lived among bits and pieces of tools and ongoing experiments and very little in the way of creature comforts.   It's probably not a coincidence that he spent his life alone .... but looking back at what he did (from a safe distance of many years), you've just got to love an eccentric genius!   I think the last sentence of the sign means that it has been open to the public under the current ownership since 1953.  We learned on our tour that during his lifetime Ed opened the area to the public on his own schedule (when he felt like it).   

 

Although man-made marvels are fun  and we always learn something,  most of them (Ed's castle included) are a one-time-only affair.   

But we never tire of nature here in Florida -- all of our favorite parks and sloughs are worth visiting time and time again.    (And there are so many where we haven't been at all.)   Finishing up this week's post with one more natural wonder from Corkscrew:  I'll have more from there in another week.

 

Roseate Spoonbill and Little Blue Heron

  

Grateful that we have  time and energy to explore the wonders -- and for digital cameras that allow me to take hundreds of pictures in order to get a few that are worth sharing!

 

LINKING TO:  OUR WORLD on Tuesday; ALL SEASONS; NATURE NOTES; THROUGH MY LENS; MOSAIC MONDAY; TUESDAY TREASURES; WILD BIRD WEDNESDAY;  WEDNESDAY AROUND THE WORLD;  SIGNS SIGNS;   THANKFUL THURSDAY;  SKYWATCH FRIDAY; SATURDAY CRITTERS; and RATHER B'BIRDING.   Thank you to all of the hosts!!!